Speaking of the ability Ed was using now, it was impossible not to mention Baron Tuer, who had sat in a secret chamber until he became a skeleton.
Although chopping off his mutated family members' heads with a knight's sword made him look like a warrior, judging by what Ed had found in the castle's various rooms over the past few days, the baron had actually been a mage-the kind from before the mana tide erupted, a mage in the traditional sword-and-magic sense.
And the spells he excelled at involved manipulating force fields within a small area. This was why most creatures in the barony had plant mutations, while the castle alone was so strange.
When Baron Tuer died, he seemed to have triggered a surge of Psionic Energy within a certain area, permanently altering the local gravitational field. That was what had kept the shattered castle suspended for fifty years.
Ed had actually slept very little over the past two days. Aside from constantly updating and upgrading his website, he had been trying to develop his other abilities.
The vessel for the Territory Secret Pact could, in essence, barely qualify as a magical implement. With some notes Baron Tuer had left behind and his own Psionic Energy compatibility of a full 8 points, Ed had soon managed to reproduce some simple spells.
However, if he used the vessel to cast spells, their effective range would be restricted to the barony.
Just as now, when Ed took the Territory Secret Pact out of his pocket, Little Green already understood his plan. After all, the two had few secrets from each other. The sapling had even helped translate this world's writing, since this wanted criminal was essentially an illiterate who couldn't read a single word.
A soft arc of light swept across the Territory Secret Pact, and space seemed to shudder briefly.
The ball of flesh steadily approaching this living creature froze for a moment, then broke through some invisible restraint and continued forward, as though nothing could stop it.
The rats had already begun to howl. Their blood-red eyes packed the darkness so densely that a single glance was enough to make someone dizzy.
"Why isn't it working?"
Little Green's voice in his head was genuinely frantic now, but Ed explained unhurriedly:
"The barony's secret pact vessel is too low-quality. It can't handle stronger monsters like this."
"I'm not actually asking you to explain that. I want to know how we're going to get out of this!"
Little Green was as frantic as an ant on a hot pan, but Ed remained calm. Hearing the revised question, he explained again:
"It means my level is too low. This big rat made its saving throw against my spell."
"So tell me what to do! It's about to roll over here!"
Ed didn't answer again. Instead, he picked up the secret pact vessel once more, only this time he pressed the crystal ball against his chest:
"Command: [Hang Upside Down]!"
To give him his due, Ed was something of a genius in certain respects. Whether the mages of the past or the Psionic Energy users of the present, few casters chose to target themselves with a spell.
Most spells took effect instantly, and having their effects act on the caster would in turn affect the casting process. This could easily collapse the entire spell's logical chain and bring about irreversible consequences.
But Ed... whether it was arrogance, ignorance, or complete confidence in his own talent, he ultimately did just that under the gaze of thousands of rats.
Little Green felt fierce winds whipping its fragile branches and new leaves. It finally understood what [Hang Upside Down] meant.
Ed had reversed the gravitational field at his location, and so the man and the tree began moving upward in something close to free fall.
And anyone with a little knowledge of physics should have understood that this didn't seem like a good thing.
"Are we going to fall out of this world?"
The fierce wind did nothing to interfere with their mental communication. Little Green was thoroughly panicked now. As a tree, it seemed to be somewhat afraid of heights.
"Actually, I'd quite like to see whether this world is round or square."
Ed wore a reckless grin amid the fierce winds. High in the night sky, the wildness in his soul seemed to awaken.
"What, scared?"
He teased Little Green in his mind.
"Honestly, sometimes your personality is pretty nasty... What do they call that in your old world? Black-bellied?"
Hearing that question, Mr. Tree knew Ed was completely confident and was only messing with it, so it became less frightened.
But that complaint had also come straight from the heart.
Ed didn't continue the conversation. Feeling the air flowing around him, he began changing the direction of the gravitational field surrounding his body.
The mutated Rat King on the ground raised thousands of heads to look into the sky. Only when the dark figure beneath the moonlight could no longer be made out did it turn its gaze back into the distance to search for new food.
Meanwhile, Ed kept switching the direction of his gravitational field in midair, flying toward the castle along a trajectory resembling a sine wave.
Back at the castle, Ed casually altered the gravitational field at the entrance, making it impossible for ordinary life-forms to enter the castle's front door whether they followed or resisted it. Only then did he finally feel at ease.
Standing beside a window, Ed could still see the Rat King rolling across the ground in search of food. It was passing near a small, man-made mound of earth, where the last Baron Tuer and his family of three were buried.
Ed watched the Rat King until dawn. When the morning sun appeared on the horizon, the rats making up the Rat King seemed suddenly to gain their freedom. They turned and bit through their tails, which were entangled at its core, then vanished across the wilderness like quicksilver spilling over the ground.
Only now did Ed finally gain a rough understanding of how the [Rat King] formed and dispersed. Mutation had not changed their nocturnal habits, but it had turned [Rat King] into a controllable, berserk swarm state.
"This world really is insane..."
As Ed marveled, he also felt fortunate that he hadn't risked traveling at night on his way to Upperstream Village. Otherwise, this thing would probably have caught him long ago.
"Little Green."
Watching this scene in the morning sunlight, Ed called softly.
"What is it?"
He looked toward the bodies of the offline players in the hall.
"We'll implement a few new features in a bit."
"Huh?"
The real world.
August 5, 2037, 19:59.
Cui Yuan suppressed his pounding heartbeat and pressed the gaming helmet onto his head.
At this hour, he should have been working overtime at the office, dealing with that damned cyber ghost. But over dinner, Cui Yuan had already seen the explosive traffic numbers from his video's first wave and realized that this time, he might really have an enormous fortune coming his way.
For an adult, nothing was more exciting than having an opportunity like this right in front of him. So Cui Yuan had taken sick leave without another word, gone home, and hurried through dinner to prepare for the servers to open.
To hell with the company and fixing bugs! If you can't beat them, join them! If I can get my fill of this wave of traffic, I'll be a regular soldier under the cyber ghost from now on.
I wonder if this game has any unfair terms and conditions. Hopefully, it has built-in photo and video recording functions. Otherwise, I'll have to install a separate plugin, which would be a bit of a hassle.
With his thoughts in a tangled jumble, Cui Yuan's consciousness entered the Soul Webway.
Player: [Great Wei Boxing Champion] connecting.